Is Wikipedia in decline? At Technology Review, Tom Simonite says the site’s base of editors has been declining since 2007, when it peaked at 51,000 — this summer, it was at 31,000. As the project has grown, so has the bureaucracy, and Wikipedia is almost uniformly seen as unwelcoming to new editors. Wikimedia executive director Sue Gardner has undertaken a project to make the interface, and by extension the site, less intimidating, but some core users resent what they see as a patronizing attitude. And is the decline in editors actually hurting Wikipedia? Gardner and others have pointed to underwritten articles about women or places outside Europe and North America, but cutting through bureaucracy and attracting new members has proved a tough problem to crack.
Why are editors leaving the world’s biggest encyclopedia?
is a senior tech and policy editor focused on online platforms and free expression. Adi has covered virtual and augmented reality, the history of computing, and more for The Verge since 2011.
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